This marks the beginning of our
19th year of covering the rice crop in the Midsouth and
in
coastal areas of Louisiana and Texas.

Our thanks to the Southern Rice Team of Dow AgroSciences for once
again sponsoring our coverage. If you see your Dow rep, be sure to
thank him or her for the company’s continued support.

OVERVIEW

Some rice already has gone to flood in south Louisiana and more is
heading that way. A small percentage also has gone to flood in
Texas. That says a good deal about how early this crop
has started – both in the coastal rice belt and in the Midsouth.

Rice planting in the Delta states has progressed so fast that some
growers throttled back on planting to avoid bunching up too much
maturing rice as harvest starts.

Rains missed parts of the Midsouth early in the week. Some flushing
started in southeast Arkansas last week and probably in other areas,
as well.

From Our Sponsor

CAN YOU AFFORD ANOTHER SPRAY?

“We’ve had good results with an early application of RebelEX herbicide on tough barnyardgrass and sprangletop. We’re past salvage applications — we must attack weeds early.”

"My growers are about 50% planted (as of 4/17) and probably half of
that is completely up. The reason we’re not completely finished is
that farmers realized they were going to really create problems
trying to keep up with harvest if they continued putting seed in the
ground. So, they held up. I have customers who will temporarily stop planting every year
to space out the crop a little.

“My rice acreage is down somewhat. Some people are planting about
20% less compared to last year, simply because of prices. My diehard
rice farmers will tell you they need rice for their rotation. This
year they’re putting it on their best
ground and will use best management practices. Rice will go on
fields that don’t have much weed activity, too. With prices like
they are, there’s no room for error this year -- with rice or
anything else, for that matter.

“We’ll have a lot more soybeans going into rice acres than into corn
acres. What corn they expected to have was planted in a relatively
short time, and a few of those acres aren’t up yet. Those are cases
where farmers had a few seeds left and planted those in small areas.
But most of mine ranges from 2 to 5 leaves. Cotton acreage will
maybe take a slight upwards bump in this area, too.”

“Rice is pretty much all planted in south
Louisiana. We got an early start with the dry weather and good
growing conditions. A lot of rice has already been flooded and more
will go to flood later this week, so things are moving along quite
well in that part of the state.

“It’s rained just enough in north Louisiana to delay things, and
they’re really just starting to any extent. A little weather system was
moving through that area today (4/17) but planting should resume
later in the week if they miss more rain after that.

“Planting, overall, is ahead of normal in Louisiana – there’s no
doubt about that. At one point it seemed like we were 1.5 to 2 weeks
ahead of average. And we haven’t had those delays with saturated
ground where we would have to wait to apply pre-flood fertilizer.
Storms that did come through were hit or miss. Here at the station
we received 1.8 inches of rain over the weekend (4/15-16), but 2
miles down the road it only measured 0.3 of an inch.

“We’ve had only a handful of calls about any problems. A little wind
damage was apparent in places, but most of that rice will be okay
with a little nitrogen and water. In places enough rain fell that
farmers had to get water off, and that ended up with a little
stretched rice. But, again, that was a limited situation.”

Jarrod T. Hardke, Arkansas Extension Rice Specialist:

“Everyone is in surprisingly good sprits through most of the state.
People have been able to make a good deal of progress with planting. We had a very similar situation last year – conditions were good and
people planted a lot of rice early. Unfortunately, we got way too
much rain late in the season, so that situation didn’t work out
well. We’re hoping this year’s weather will play out better.

“USDA’s crop progress report on Monday said that as of last Friday
(4/14) we were about 67% planted, but I’m comfortable estimating
that we’re 75% planted, counting what people could do over the
weekend. Some guys have already finished, while I’ve talked to a
number of growers who only have about 25% left. That covers a cross
section of both small and large growers.

“With all this rice planted in such a short time, we could be
setting ourselves up for problems if the crop hits a major weather
event. That's the down side.

“Parts of the state needed rain early in the week. A system on
Monday looked like it would bring rain across a wide part of the
crop, but it got to about Little Rock and made a sharp northward
turn. Even though the forecast called for plenty of rain in
northeast Arkansas, some growers caught it but others didn’t.

“In places, growers were flushing rice last week, particularly in
southeast Arkansas to get rice out of the ground. That area mostly
has soil moisture, but crusting was causing plants to struggle.”

“We’re at least 60% planted, if not more, and a good
portion is up. The early fields that emerged look really good, and
it’s surprising how far along we are.

“A few minor hiccups have turned up along the way. The first calls
about Roundup drift came in last week, and some fields were touched
with paraquat. Otherwise, the phones have been relatively quiet.
Little storms moved through early in the week but
haven’t dumped too much rain, and we actually could be through with
planting by May 1.”

Amy Beth Dowdy, ABD Crop Consulting, Dexter, Missouri:

"A very
small amount of rice planting started 2 weeks ago, but most of what
we’ve planted went in the ground in the last 7 days (from 4/17). Six
of my growers are completely done and the rest have a good portion
started, with most of them at about the halfway point. A few of my
growers won’t have rice at all this year, as things worked out.

“We’ve gotten about an inch of rain. But if it doesn’t rain more,
then we can start planting again by the end of the week and maybe
finish up. A couple of hundred acres of the earliest planted rice
are spiking.”

David Hydrick, Hydrick’s Crop Consulting, Inc., Jonesboro,
Arkansas:

“We’ve planted about 95% of our expected rice crop (as of
4/19). We’ve never been this far along this early. My acres will be
off some, maybe down 10%. Of the rice planted, 30% is just emerging.
Very few fields are at what I’d call a full stand.

“We got a good rain on the western half of my territory early this
week but the system played out as it got to the eastern side. As
things worked out, cotton was the first thing any of my growers
started planting, and I’ve had some cotton up for a week.”

Hank Jones, C&J Ag Consulting, Pioneer, Louisiana:

“I won’t
have any rice this year, as things look now. Growers didn’t see any
point in planting it. Some will be produced in the area, but not by
any of my guys. On the other hand, I’ve just about tripled my cotton
acres. I picked up one farmer who was getting back into cotton and
I also will work cotton for several farmers who’ve never been clients.”

M.O. Way, Texas A&M Entomologist, Beaumont:

“Organic rice
acreage will increase this year to maybe 20% of the state’s crop.
That’s up from 15% to 16% in 2016. A good deal of this shift will be
on the east side of Houston.

“Since organic prices tend to be higher, a number of farmers looked
at the conventional market and decided to take a chance on some
organic acreage. It’s a simple transition for farmers who’ve had
land in cattle for 3 or more years and haven’t used any chemicals.
That land qualifies for organic status right away.

“As of April 14 about 65% of the Texas crop had been planted. And
except for the low prices, I’m not hearing any complaints. Farmers
are applying more bird repellant – AV-1011 – than they did last
year. We’re again running above average on precipitation, which is
making it difficult to always plant when desired.”